2018 Mercedes-Benz 190 - Wheel flew off

Left front of sons car was making a bumping sound following a service. Went back to garage who said it was under tray and booked him in for beg of Sept. son drive to Cornwall and from service until the wheel finally flew off whilst driving he clocked 1000 miles! Is this possible? So thank ful it was on a local road and not the motorway.
A180

Itā€™s definitely possible. You didnā€™t specify what the ā€œserviceā€ was but itā€™s likely the lug nuts werenā€™t tightened on that wheel and they eventually worked their way off. Unfortunately, youā€™ll have a hard time proving it.

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What exactly was done during the service?

My guess, the left front wheel.

It was a full service. Bill receipt says the wheels are taken off. The garage tell us they didnā€™t as they could see the brakes etc from underneath. The was no sound before the service and he took the car in a few days after the service to report the sound. Garage said it was to do with the tray under the front of the car and booked him in for 3 weeks time. Noise continued and suddenly worsened the day the wheel came off.
Garage are now sorting the wheel free of charge and getting someone to repair under the car where is dragged along the ground.

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The garage is trying to make this right by arranging the repairs. Since the receipt says the wheels were taken off and the wheel fell off afterwards they do not have much of a defense.

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your boy does not know how to use a lug wrench?

It took 1000 miles, The driver should have noticed something was wrong before the wheel feel off.

The lug nuts didnā€™t instantly go from snug enough to hold the wheel on firmly to all of them falling off.

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+1

Everything in lifeā€“including negative experiencesā€“has the potential to be a learning experience. Hopefully the OPā€™s son has learned that he should have checked the lug nuts as soon as he heard that noise.

Yes, the mechanic is the guilty party, but continuing to drive w/o checking the lug nuts was not a wise decision on the sonā€™s part.

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I think this garage is doing more than they really have to just to maintain their reputation as a good business . The heading might be , is there a 2018 Mercedes 190 ?

I suspect this is a not a US location so after this is done the person needs to post positive reviews on a couple of web rating sites .

The clues that this took place in The UK areā€¦

This happened several years ago, my wife and I were in the driveway of the fire station, the station is on a 4 lane state highway with businessā€™s on each side. She shouted ā€˜There is a tire rolling up the roadā€™ a second later we heard the scraping noise and saw the SUV with a serious list heading for the curb. I helped get the tire back to the driver. He had been hearing some noise for a while and was heading to one of the infamous chain shops to have it looked at, less than 1/2 mile away. He had no clue what the noise was and was willing to use a less than stellar shop look at it. Not everyone has mechanical skills to figure out a noise and fix it themselves. Or to even know what the sound means. One person I know panics when the road noise changes a bit (new pavement to old etc) I gave up explaining it , some people are not mechanically inclined.

Total closure, garage have helped out. We are long standing customers.
All is well!
Thank you all.

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Glad you were treated well

Am I the only one bothered by the mismatch between the receipt and what the garage is saying they did. They put on the receipt that the wheels were removed - for a brake inspection, it sounds like. Later they said they didnā€™t actually remove the wheels, because they could see the brakes through the wheels.

Why are they covering the costs for everything if they didnā€™t remove the wheels? It sounds like theyā€™re lying about that, trying to cover themselves. Even if they didnā€™t actually remove the wheels, you canā€™t do a proper brake inspection with the wheels still onā€¦it sounds like one way or another, this garage is cutting some cornersā€¦

You are nitpicking. That may be a standard print out receipt and it does not matter now because they did solve the problem . The customer can now decide to use them or not in the future .

A simple case of only getting one side of the story and the son drove a lot of miles after the service .

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Iā€™ll go a little bit off topic

It is possible to measure brake pad thickness without removing a rim

image

That said . . . the fact that the shop is making things right seems to indicate they feel guilty. Now whether they actually are guilty, or only feel that way is another matter

I can agree with you to some degree, but not 100%

At this point, what difference does it make?

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More to the point, he should have turned around immediately and brought the noise to the attention of the shop. And yes, Iā€™m also bugged by the shop apparently charging labor to remove the wheels but not removing them.

Every time I get tires worked on the receipt says to re-check the lug nuts after 50 miles. Itā€™s a good idea. I will say though that it happened to my sonā€™s car when it hadnā€™t been worked on at all. Never fell off but a couple lugs gone and the others loose. Donā€™t know why to this day if it was vandals or something else. Iā€™d been around cars for over 40 years and never had it happen and didnā€™t recognize the noise. Of course now if there is a noise, first thing is to check the lugs. I can see how itā€™s over-looked by the average driver.